What could be more bizarre than an early morning TV discussion program and phone-in about where the capital of the country is located? Except, that is, the present government policy, inherited from 50 years of KMT misrule, of placing it in another country.
What prompts these musings is Premier Yu Shyi-kun's response on Friday to DPP Legislator Cho Jung-tai (
Of course, Chen is unlikely to do any of this, and we can't help but wonder whether this doesn't in itself focus on a fundamental oversight of Chen's government, which is that so much time has been spent on futile political battles when so much could have been done administratively to change Taiwan's cultural agenda. A complete housecleaning of the education curriculum to get rid of reunificationist fantasy would be a start. Why, as Trong Chai (
This problem with the high-school curriculum is simply indicative of a wider failing of the DPP's vision, namely its lack of a revolutionary ideology. We do not mean of course that the DPP should have adopted some bizarre political agenda such as Maoism. What we do mean is that it needed to have a more dynamic vision of what change outside the merely political was necessary in Taiwan. A state contains more than political institutions. One of the strongest parts of any society are the social institutions that work to propagate the ideology of the ruling class -- what Louis Althusser has called "ideological state apparatuses," which include the media, educational, cultural and religious institutions. The KMT -- which, incidentally, does, or did, have a revolutionary background and as a result understood the importance of these things -- has monopolized these apparatuses for half a century to disseminate the colonial KMT's version of Taiwan's history and culture. And to a great extent it, along with its "blue camp" fellow travellers, still does.
The problem here is that this means that the DPP is always having to argue its cause in a debate framed by the assumptions of its enemies, since these are the assumptions of Taiwan in general. In not wanting to rock the boat, perhaps, because of its origins, not understanding how the boat needed to be rocked, the DPP has left far too much of this status quo in place.
In an article published in Newsweek on Monday last week, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged China to retake territories it lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. “If it is really for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t China take back Russia?” Lai asked, referring to territories lost in 1858 and 1860. The territories once made up the two flanks of northern Manchuria. Once ceded to Russia, they became part of the Russian far east. Claims since then have been made that China and Russia settled the disputes in the 1990s through the 2000s and that “China
Trips to the Kenting Peninsula in Pingtung County have dredged up a lot of public debate and furor, with many complaints about how expensive and unreasonable lodging is. Some people even call it a tourist “butchering ground.” Many local business owners stake claims to beach areas by setting up parasols and driving away people who do not rent them. The managing authority for the area — Kenting National Park — has long ignored the issue. Ultimately, this has affected the willingness of domestic travelers to go there, causing tourist numbers to plummet. In 2008, Taiwan opened the door to Chinese tourists and in
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) on Thursday was handcuffed and escorted by police to the Taipei Detention Center, after the Taipei District Court ordered that he be detained and held incommunicado for suspected corruption during his tenure as Taipei mayor. The ruling reversed an earlier decision by the same court on Monday last week that ordered Ko’s release without bail. That decision was appealed by prosecutors on Wednesday, leading the High Court to conclude that Ko had been “actively involved” in the alleged corruption and it ordered the district court to hold a second detention hearing. Video clips
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) arrest is a significant development. He could have become president or vice president on a shared TPP-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) ticket and could have stood again in 2028. If he is found guilty, there would be little chance of that, but what of his party? What about the third force in Taiwanese politics? What does this mean for the disenfranchised young people who he attracted, and what does it mean for his ambitious and ideologically fickle right-hand man, TPP caucus leader Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌)? Ko and Huang have been appealing to that
RSS